


The Next Right Thing

by ONeillwith2ls



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23217928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ONeillwith2ls/pseuds/ONeillwith2ls
Summary: Jack takes his daughter to the Movies--who knew he'd have something in common with a Disney Princess?
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51





	The Next Right Thing

**Author's Note:**

> As always The Stargate characters belong to Stargate and (here's a one I didn't think I'd have to write) the Frozen characters and movie belongs to Disney. I don't mean any copyright infringement so I'm sorry in advance please don't sue me, I have no money to take and I'm not making profit from this!
> 
> Every respect is meant to the song and the characters none of this is meant harshly!
> 
> Right so I may have called 'the movies' 'the cinema' or vice versa, because frankly I'm British and we use the two almost synonymous in the context, for example "We're going to the movies" is the same as "We're going to the cinema." I might have called the movie a film too as in "Do you want to see a movie?" we'd say "do you want to see a film?" So sorry, you might have noticed too all my spellings are British English sooo that should have given my game away long ago!

She was late to the franchise really. The first time she had watched it she was four years old and had fallen in love with Elsa, of course. She had asked him if she was like Princess Elsa her eyes full of hope. She wasn’t of course, she was like Sam, he thought her mother was a much healthier role model then any Disney Princess.

Not that Elsa or Anna were weak in nature and certainly a lot tougher then the pretty delicate princesses which had been portrayed in earlier Disney films. If they would only write a princess who worn BDU’s and held a P90 like a second hand, maybe then he could get on board with the whole ‘I want to be like—” concept. Neither him nor Sam were raising Grace to be a pretty little princessie type and he was honest to god, surprised she even liked the movie.

His Grace who climbed trees for a better vantage point, who played with nerf guns with her twin brother Jacob, who they had signed up to kung fu lessons not a week before seeing the movie, wanted to know if she was like—A DISNEY PRINCESS!

Jack swallowed and looked to Sam for guidance who was nodding at him giving him a ‘tell her what she wants to hear’ look.

“You have pretty blond hair just like hers and your eyes are just as big and blue.”

He had waited tentatively for a response from her, the mood for the rest of the day was based on her interpretation on what was just said.

“Mommy, Daddy thinks I’m like Elsa!” She said swigging on her arm happily.

Phew.

That had started a year long tyranny of frozen songs. She had ran outside in her Elsa costume determined to use her magical ice powers to stop Jacob instead of her gun. Jacob of course at the time had no objection to this, it made her an easy target, an unarmed princess, until his father had given his a stern telling off for shooting a unarmed defenseless civilian.

“But she has magical powers daddy, that’s not defenseless.” He had said his own brown eyes boring back at him for a moment before he went running off to find his sister.

“Its the principle of the thing!” Jack had called after him not bothering to chase him down he looked to Sam again.

“Its just a phase.” was all she had said.

* * *

He thought she was right, but then Frozen 2 was advertised, and even though Grace was now nine years old she wanted to go and see Frozen 2.

So here he was almost Seventy years old (alright he was only sixty eight, but still way too old for this!) taking his nine year old daughter to see a Disney film. Jacob had been dragged along because mommy was working (otherwise it would have been her bringing Grace) with a less then impressed look on his face. Jacob had wanted to see the new Star Wars film, frankly Jack would rather sit through that, but with the promise of mommy bringing them to see it next week (there was a little bit of revenge for her!) Jacob had reluctantly tagged along.

So, he knew there was funny bits in the film, or there would be. He did like the little snowman and ironically Anna had always reminded him of Sam for some reason (her hope? Her sunny outlook no matter what? Her amazing right hook?) Maybe that’s why he had a better connection with the second sister in the Frozen universe.

It make him look up suddenly when the snowman started to call out “Samantha?” to an invisible presence, he had half expected Sam to be standing there when he did. It made him smile before the snowman burst into a funny song about things making more sense when you’re older.

If anyone in this audience knew, he did, they did not, they made less sense. It made him smile at the screen.

But, then something unexpected happened.

Not in the plot, not really.

In the emotion.

Anna sat in a cold dark cave, having lost her snowman sidekick and believing Elsa dead a song on cue came.

It wasn’t the words as a whole, but there were feelings.

‘ _Dark, Cold, Numb._ ’ The words latched to his chest unexpectedly.

‘ _Ready to succumb._ ’ He knew that feeling.

‘ _Grief has gravity_.’ Pulling him, pulling him down, those hours in Charlie’s bedroom, his baseball shirt still in the laundry. Sitting for minutes, hours, days.

‘ _You are lost, hope is gone_ ’ his heart was pounding in his chest, making it harder to breathe.

_‘I can’t find my direction The only star that guided me was you.’_ Charlie had been his light in everything, the little boy wanting his father to play catch, it had been the reason for him coming home.

_‘I won't look too far ahead_ _It's too much for me to take’_ Even after going through the Stargate he had taken it all one day at a time for a long time, pressing days together into weeks, into months.

“Daddy?” he heard from beside him snapping him out of his revere. He looked to his little girl beside him in the eyes, he could feel the tears streaming down his face. She looked to him wide eyed and shocked (a split second he thought she looked more like Sam then ever) her hands came up to his cheeks and wiped away the tears “are you alright?” she asked him.

“Yeah baby girl.” He says to her, he says as he picks her right out of her chair and puts her on his lap.

“C’mere.” Grace says to him which makes him smile as she wraps her arms around his neck.

_Just do the next right thing_

He held onto his baby girl tightly when he saw Jacob looking at him equally as concerned. Jack brought out one arm and put it around Jacob who cuddled in.

People had often mistaken Jacob and Grace for his grandchildren, and to be fair he was old enough to be. If Charlie had lived he would have been thirty three to their nine, 24 at the time of his baby brother and sister’s birth.

And then a dark dread entered his mind.

If Charlie had lived he would never have stepped through the Stargate. They never would have come to him for the suicide mission, there would be a dozen better qualified people to go through that gate the first time! Hell Sam was better qualified, but if Charlie had lived no Stargate, no Sam, no Daniel or Teal’c. The last twenty three years would have been erased.

He held them a little closer. As if their lives were being taken from him too.

No, they didn’t replace Charlie, they didn’t make the pain go away or make him forgive himself.

‘Take a step, step again It is all that I can to do’ Somewhere in the steps that he took, somewhere somehow, he’d been given these gifts!

A best friend. He’s never admit it to Daniel of course, but he really was his best friend. Daniel had seen Jack at his absolute worse, the moment where he was about to cross into taking his own life and stopped him. There are many ways to save a man’s life and he had that with other men and women in the air force, but this civilian! This archaeologist, taught him the value of life again.

His Wife. He remembered the bright smile an young face of an air force Captain. He’s seen from day one her potential in the air force, and she quickly had him believing she would make general one day, maybe even chief of staff. It didn’t take long after that, for him to completely fall in love with her. Oh he had loved Sara! Sam was so different to her his marriage was so very different, he struggled to communicate emotions, right up until the end Sara didn’t see it. She never could get under his armour because it was up for a reason. If she had known exactly what he was, what he did, he knew Sara couldn’t forgive it, so his armour was up. Problem was it was around his dark emotions too, all the negative stuff, the missions to kill, to not get caught, to die—Sara would never forgive him.

With Sam, she knew, his brilliant and wonderful wife had (illegally mind—the sneaky minx) known all his missions, every last one, for a long time an had still fallen in love with him, still held him as if he was precious and wonderful to her. He loved Sara and nothing could take that away, but Sam was part of his identity. She was his hope, she brought him back to life, she was his great second chance.

His Children. Grace Cassie O’Neill and Jacob Charles O’Neill. No they didn’t heal what Charlie had left behind but the moment he had held them in his arms he knew they were his future, the greatest hope yet.

* * *

“Hey.” Sam said with a smile as she sat beside him on the sofa later that evening “the kids are asleep and all SG teams are accounted for.” She smiled as she reached for her beer.

“You can relax.” He said with only a half smile his arm put around her.

“How did the cinema trip go?” Sam asked.

“Pretty well.” He said quietly concentrating a little too much on his beer.

Sam studied him for a moment before he drank her own beer again then said quietly “Grace said something upset you in the cinema.”

Jack studied his beer again and sat silently picking at the label. “I didn’t think a Disney Princess could make an old General—” he trailed and shrugged wiping his face with his hand he turned towards her.

“She told me the song, she made me look it up on youtube with her, she was worried.” Sam observed.

Jack gave a heavy sigh “I didn’t mean to worry her.”

“You’re their superhero.” She said with a sad smile.

“What did you tell her?” Jack said quietly.

“That things in our past can sometimes hurt us when we’re least expecting it, that it catches up off guard.” She took a sip of her drink “then she said ‘like Charlie?’” Sam said quietly.

“Damn it, sorry Sam, its not fair you’re the one dealing with it.” Jack said, the break in his voice conveying his emotions.

Sam looked to him and put down her beer before she held out her arms ‘C’mere.” She said to him which he happily obliged. “I reminded her that we all love Charlie and miss him and sometimes it hits us all over again. I have a stepson and they have a brother they’ll never know, and that you had a son you lost and can’t get back, it makes us appreciate each other even more.”

He spoke gently, almost a vibration against her chest “I’d been there, making a choice to just take a step at a time—and I swear Sam had those airman not shown up there and then—”he held her closer “I was so close to loosing all this too—or never having it.” He took a sharp intake of breath “—God never having it!” he choked. She held him for a few minutes just as a comfort to him “—I don’t know where I would be without you and the kids.” He whispered. “Even if I did have to wait a little while for it all to happen, it happened and I have you and Grace and Jacob.”

“I wish you never had to experience it Jack.” She whispered to him.

“He would be thirty three.” He said blankly “his kids could have grown up with their Aunties and Uncles like cousins.” He looked up into her eyes “God you’re only just closer to my age!”

Sam chuckled “You’re not that old Jack.” She told him stroking his now white hair. She had never seen him as a number or a physical age. Her minds eye didn’t see her sixty eight year old husband, he minds eye saw the handsome colonel who she had met all those years ago, because physically he’d changed and in some respects he was dealing with things a lot better then when they had met, but her favourite parts of him, his eyes, his soul, that hadn’t changed. Its what she loved him for, and anyway for a sixty eight year old man he wasn’t in bad shape he still got down and roughed it with his kids although he would complain about his knees afterwards, but he complained about his knees as a younger then she is now colonel.

“But hey, at least you get to take Jake to see Star Wars next weekend—” he said cheerfully.

She looked at him nervously her teeth sinking into her bottom lip, “Yeah about that—!"


End file.
